Websites and web-based/mobile applications (hereinafter, websites) are heavily used for business, social, and government interactions. Users are required to learn how to best navigate each website because the information layout and information presentation, and navigation are unique to each specific website. While this uniqueness creates a unique user experience on each website, it also imposes a site-engagement burden on users as they struggle to learn each site's specific interaction models. This leads to poor user experience, visitor frustration, and high visitor bounce rates.
Some standardization has recently emerged in the form of best practice interfaces that websites can use to minimize user engagement burden. For example, top navigation bars and site-specific menu columns and blocks help create a somewhat standardized user experience in part. Similarly, search boxes have become a familiar way for a user to navigate and engage a website, even when they are not appropriate for many situations. However, website standardization is rarely explicit or architectural, rather it remains implicit, informal, and faddish.
One way to bridge the gap between the need for user familiarity and the need for differentiation is to offer personalized interaction options that can be consistently made available at any point of the website visit to improve user experience. However, today such interactive assistance is offered on an ad hoc basis and is inconsistent. When a visitor is stuck or confused on a website, the user does not have a universal “help” button to quickly obtain assistance. Most assistance available today is impersonal, pre-scripted, and requires extensive (and repetitive) information sharing prior to obtaining help.
Another significant gap in website interaction models is a lack of user personalization. Some sites offer a “My Website” type of personalization, but it is mostly limited to information pane layout and does not extend to interaction models. Further, the personalization is not context aware, e.g., it does not have knowledge of the user's identity, preferences, or real-time interaction history.
As a result, website visitors have to engage with each website differently in order to obtain the information they want. Website providers keep trying to guess the unique needs of the user and invariably either under-estimate or over-estimate what the user needs.